philoro

[philoro]

OK, so that plan was dumb. Could only find it on Google Books, which cuts off after a few pages.

I then ran into similar problems with half a dozen other pieces.

I've found an interesting paper 'On the Transcendental Ideality of Space and Time in Modern Physics', but it looks like it's arguing more in the directiong of Kantian idealism, rather than strong transcendental arguments for realism, so, hmmm.

Why can't everything be online?

[philoro]

Today's paper

Today my aim is to get at least one paper read. Further aims if I achieve that one. Starting with:

'The Transcendental Domain of Physics', by Rom Harre, in Constituting Objectivity, Michel Bitbol, Pierre Kerszberg, Jean Petitot (eds).

It's a short one, so hopefully I can't get too bogged down.

[philoro]

A visual story of me readng this paper

The paper is available online, btw, and it looks really interesting: 'Some Steps Towards a Transcendental Deduction of Quantum Mechanics'... if you understand Kant, transcendental arguments, set theory, and quantum mechanics. As you can see, I got roughly half of this paper. Think I will probably end up summarising the general line of argument and saying that it gestures towards what I need, but would require a good deal more work to substantiate. Or something.

[philoro]

So, my aim to do this every morning didn't really work out

But I'm still here and still hoping to use this to keep my head in the game. Today I was meant to be struggling through Marie McGinn's Sense and Certainty, again. I say 'struggling' not because it's badly written - it's not! - but because it was clear from very early on where she and I differ, and what I need to say about that, but I have to keep reading to make sure that she doesn't answer that point and so that I can articulate her arguments before I explain why I think they miss the mark. It's a really frustrating exercise, and I've been stuck on it all summer.

So, given that I'd spent the morning failing to prgress on this, I've switched it up, and now I'm looking at the much more exciting (to me) work of Michel Bitbol on transcendental arguments and quantum mechanics. :D Amazing the difference it makes to be looking at someone's arguments I have hoped for. Also: quantum mechanics :D EXCITING.

Let us do this thing.

[philoro]

Morning the first

Well, I said that I would check in here every morning to keep me in the philosophical bent, so this is me, checking in. I felt so rough yesterday afternoon that I decided to just take it off after meeting with my supervisor, in the hopes that I would feel better this morning. TBH, I think I could do with taking today off, too, but paid employment calls.

So, here's my fog-brained philosophical thought for the morning: Moore's argument for the existence of the external world - what's up with that? The number of people who think they know what he meant, and that it was insightful, and that it was different to what other people think (who are WRONG)... Inspirational? Clearly. Insightful? I'm not so convinced.

That's about as articulate as I can mange at the moment. Toodle pip!

[philoro]

I've decided to keep a Tumblr for my philosophical work

Given my addiction to Tumblr, it is my hope that by coming here first thing in the morning, I'll get in the habit of thinking philosophically first thing in the morning. I need to accomplish the final push towards completing my PhD, and this is one of the tools I help to do that with.

My postings, here, may or may not be accessible to laypeople, but feel free to follow me if you want to know more about what I have spent the last 7 years of my life doing.